The Grocery Store Vigilante
by BearfootTruck
Summary: One evening, Gaara goes grocery shopping, and what starts off as a minor disturbance will explode into something more. Rated M for violence, blood and strong language.


**Judging by the faves and followers I got for my last** ** _Naruto_** **fic, I'm encouraged to do another. This time, I'm gonna do something a little different. I don't ordinarily do M-rated fics, but something happened earlier today that inspired me to do this one. Anyways, enjoy!**

* * *

One fine evening, a black 1970 Pontiac GTO pulled into the parking lot of Dino's Park 'n Shop, the local grocery store for the town of Glocester, Rhode Island. The driver parked the car in a spot as far from the front door as humanly possible, the better to avoid getting it dented by rogue carriages. From out of the car stepped Gaara, one of the town's natives. He strolled across the parking lot with an air of nonchalance and entered the store just as casually. After grabbing a carriage, he got down to shopping.

Gaara regarded grocery shopping as bothersome to his psyche, mainly because of trying to navigate around other people and because of the pop music that played over the PA system. Nevertheless, he managed as best as he could, picking up whatever he needed to get him through the week, plus a few things that weren't really necessary to his well-being, but were desirable enough that he felt that they were worth it. For the most part, nobody bothered him and he bothered nobody…that is, until he got to the produce section, where he spotted three louts just screwing around in the corner.

"So yeah," said one of the louts, a guy with a beard who was wearing a Yankees cap, "I says to the guy…'hey, tell your bitch not to go shootin' her mouth off at me!' and he's like…fuckin'…'yeah, well go shoot your own mouth off!' and I'm just laughin' at him and sayin' 'oh, you wanna fuckin' go at me? Go ahead, pal!' and so he went, and let me tell ya, he really became part of the pavement!"

The other two louts laughed.

Meanwhile, Gaara picked up a watermelon and put it in his carriage, doing his best to ignore the three of them. After getting a bag of cherries, he went to the nearest register with the shortest line. Once he'd suffered through waiting for an old lady with a carriageload of items, it was finally his turn.

"Hi, how are you?" asked the cashier, a young lady with auburn hair and a smile that could've ended wars.

"I'm fine," replied Gaara.

"Is plastic okay?"

"Yes, that will be fine."

And so, the cashier started bagging Gaara's items. After he snuck a package of Chuckles onto the conveyor belt, his eyes settled on the woman's chest. He tried not to stare, but no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't help but notice how blessed she was. However, his enjoyment of her anatomy was interrupted by one thing:

"Hey Bob, ya know what would be cool?"

Gaara recognized the voice as belonging to one of those stupid louts.

"What?" asked Bob.

"Fill a watermelon with vodka!"

"Yeah, and serve it at a family picnic!" said a third one. "Happy Independence Day!"

Gaara found their laughter obnoxious enough that he surmised that it could have been weaponized, and the world's most notorious terrorist groups would pay billions for it. He clenched his fists.

"$88.43" said the cashier.

Without so much as blinking, Gaara slowly unclenched his fists, pulled out his walled and took out his Visa.

"Debit or credit?" asked the cashier.

"Credit."

While the three louts were still falsely asserting their manhoods, Gaara scanned his card, approved the amount and signed. Then, the cashier handed him his receipt with a smile.

"Have a good day!" said the cashier.

"You too." ( _It's too late for that._ )

Gaara fished around through the grocery bags for his pack of Chuckles, cursing himself for being too entranced by the cashier's endowments and distracted by the three louts to speak up about it. Nevertheless, he found the Chuckles in short order and began to consume them.

"Wow, that's the most excitement this place has had in a while!" said a customer.

Gaara found this comment unusually interesting. On one hand, he felt that such "excitement" was unnecessary, but on the other hand, he found Glocester to be relatively boring, so he welcomed anything that would break the usual routine. On the way out to his car, he hummed "Stronger Than Evil" by Heavy Load.

"Hey!"

Gaara assumed that whoever shouted was shouting at somebody else, so he kept pushing his carriage.

"Hey you!"

Gaara ignored the shout and kept going.

"You with the jacket!"

It was only after hearing this shout and the subsequent rushing of footsteps that Gaara stopped and turned around, by which time he was but a few feet away from his GTO. Sure enough, the three louts were upon him.

"Hey, you goin' to the liquor store?" asked the one with the Yankees cap.

"No," said Gaara. "Go away." He turned around again and kept going when he felt another one spin him around.

"What's the matter?" asked another one, a big, bald, burly fellow with a navy blue T-shirt. "You some kinda lightweight?"

"Yeah, tell 'em, Bob!" said the third one, a shorter guy with an assortment of tattoos on his lower arms.

"I said, _go_ … _away_." Gaara stared at the lout with the Yankees cap.

"Or what?" said Bob. "It's all of us against you!"

"Oh hey, look what we have here! What's that mean?" Mr. Yankees pointed out the "愛" tattoo on Gaara's forehead.

"I think it means 'loser'!" said Bob.

"Yeah, go back to China, ya fuckin' loser!" said the short one.

All three of them laughed.

Gaara would have walked away, but this time, the three louts had pushed one too many wrong buttons. Using their laughter to his advantage, Gaara reached into one of his jacket pockets and pulled out a Smith & Wesson Model 19 snub-nose. Then, he shot Bob right through the heart. Bob collapsed to his knees and hit the ground with a punishing thud, painting the pavement with crimson and putting the brakes on the laughter.

"HOLY SHIT!"

Mr. Yankees and the short guy attempted to run, but Gaara took aim and shot the former in the head. Then, he shot the short guy in the back. The short guy survived, but was desperately dragging himself across the parking lot in an attempt to escape. It would prove to be all for naught.

"You don't look too bad, here's another." Gaara shot the short guy again, this time in the head. He then holstered his Model 19.

"Motherfuckers."

Gaara loaded his groceries into his GTO, put the carriage away and drove off like nothing happened. However, he went around the back of the store to avoid the crowd that had formed, all reacting differently yet similarly to the three bodies.

For Gaara, the rest of the day would pass without fanfare. When he went to sleep, there weren't too many questions that he would ask himself. All he knew was that he'd done what he felt was right at the time and that he would somehow be vindicated in the end.

* * *

 **Criticism is gold. Negativity and nitpicking are pyrite.  
**


End file.
